AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That did seem to go smoothly,Julita says. It’s hard to tell from her tone whether she’s actually happy about that fact.
She has more experience with scourge sorcery than any of us, having been subjected to her brother and Wendos’s experiments as a child. While she hasn’t openly balked at our plan, I can’t imagine she loves the idea of getting closer to people who bolster their own power through others’ pain—or hearing me spout off their philosophies.
I round the corner—and find myself face to face with Romild, the leadership student who had designs on the position as Stavros’s assistant. My self-appointed rival lets her lips curl into a sneer.
She probably heard at least part of our argument. She’s thinking about how Stavros must be regretting giving the position to me now and no doubt hoping she’ll get another shot at it.
The sense of her judgment shouldn’t rankle me the way it does. Although Stavros is definitely regretting working with me, just not for the reasons she thinks.
I simply glower at her and stalk on to the stairwell.
I keep a peeved expression on my way out of the building. At the sight of a blue-uniformed figure who’s appeared by the Domi’s side entrance, my pulse kicks up a notch.
I’d veer off toward a different doorway, but these days I’m as likely to find two soldiers someplace else as none. So I stride ahead as if my mind is focused on some matter too important for me to acknowledge the man standing guard.
He doesn’t stir from his post a couple of paces from the entryway. But as I walk past him, a faint tingle of drifting magic quivers through my riven soul.
My stomach lurches. Did he just cast a gift toward me?
What will it have told him?
I continue on into the building, but rather than heading upstairs to Stavros’s quarters, I turn down the hall. At this time in the morning, students with later starts to their school day are still trickling in and out of the dining hall, but I don’t pay them any mind.
I slip out through the front entrance, past two other soldiers who don’t give me any impression of magic at all, and ease around the outside of the building.
Not for the first time, I’m grateful for the grand statues the college’s administration erected around the grounds. A looming marble figure of some famous cleric hides me behind his sweeping stone robes.
Propping myself against the base of the statue, I peer toward the guard who used his gift.
What’s the matter?Julita asks.
I pitch my voice low. “I caught a whiff of magic when I passed that soldier. As if he was working a gift on me.”
It doesn’t appear that the effort gave him any reason for concern, though. The man, who looks young enough to pass for one of the college’s students, is still standing tall and stiff in the same spot next to the doorway.
I study him for a few minutes longer. Several students and a professor meander through the doorway, and he doesn’t so much as twitch in reaction.
If he’s casting magic toward them too, it’s slight enough that I can’t pick it up from this far away.
It can’t be unusual for soldiers to have at least some small gift they claimed with a dedication sacrifice. Even among the poor of the outer wards, I knew at least as many people who’d given up a piece of themselves for a little power as not.
I don’t see any obvious markers of a sacrifice on the man. No missing fingers or bits of facial features. But there are plenty of possibilities I wouldn’t be able to easily notice.
Casimir gave up several of his back teeth, replacing them with gems in the typical courtesan fashion. Julita told me she sacrificed her lowest two ribs.
There’s only so long I can keep watching the soldier without it looking odd to anyone who starts watchingme. I commit what I can see of his face to memory, so I’ll recognize him if we cross paths again.
Short chocolate-brown curls that gleam under the morning sun. A strong but elegant nose. Creamy, unblemished skin.
Gods above, if he ever decides soldiering isn’t to his tastes anymore, I’d bet the companionship division would welcomehimas a courtesan. He sure as shit doesn’t look as if he’s seen a whole lot of combat.
What if it’s for his magic rather than his fighting skills that the Crown’s Watch recruited him?
I pull myself away from the statue with a knot I can’t shake in my gut.
If the king is using gifts to seek out sorcerers… who’s to say they won’t pick up on the sorceryI’mtrying so hard to suppress?
Seven
